What Does Multimedia Mean?
Multimedia refers to content that uses more than one medium. The categories of media are slippery, but they generally include:
- Text
- Sound
- Graphics/images
- Animation/video (live footage as opposed to animation)
Multimedia became an important concept as the Web moved away from a largely textual layout to a graphical one. Many sites were competing to become true multimedia sites with a mixture of text, sound, images and videos.
Techopedia Explains Multimedia
Technically speaking, a video (several images run in succession) with sound qualifies as multimedia by itself. Moreover, now that the Web is capable of giving a true multimedia experience, the focus is on rich media – that is, multimedia with interactive elements.
In a very real sense, however, the Web still has a long way to go before its textual roots are left behind. Much of the media and multimedia on the Web is encased in text because this is still the primary method of navigation across the Web.